NYC’s Head of ESG Says Managers of Private Marke

NYC’s Head of ESG Says Managers of Private Markets Are Unbothered by Backlash

John Adler, the head of ESG for retirement systems in New York, revealed recently that there had been no withdrawals on environmental, social and governance (ESG) among managers of private markets. In a recent interview, Adler explained that private market managers were focused on strengthening their ESG processes and had already allocated more resources to work on these initiatives.

He called to attention the differences between managers of private markets and their public market counterparts, noting that while both sides seemed to be working on ESG, public market managers didn’t necessarily announce their moves. This may be because over the last few years, asset managers in the United States have experienced backlash on their ESG initiatives from critics and GOP legislators.

Just last week, more asset managers in America exited Climate Action 100+, a collaborative investor engagement initiative. Among them was Nuveen, a global trillion-dollar investment company that focuses on managing money for not-for-profit institutions.

These latest exits come after the House Judiciary Committee penned a letter requesting data on the involvement of managers in the initiative, data on actions investors planned to take and documents associated with the initiative. This also comes after, earlier in the year, JPMorgan Asset Management, Invesco, PIMCO and State Street completely withdrew from the initiative. Some of the companies cited independence and legal concerns about the initiative’s phase 2 program.

While BlackRock also left the initiative, its global arm still plays a role in it. The company is the biggest asset manager globally. In a statement, BlackRock revealed that committing to phase 2 across its assets under management would give rise to legal considerations, especially in the U.S.

This isn’t an issue to the majority of the clients, which seek climate-focused investment solutions, because most are global businesses. Earlier this month, the investment giant rolled out its climate-focused stewardship option, with Adler noting that the fund wanted BlackRock to ensure that the team handling decarbonization would be engaging with large emitters and requesting them to set Scope 1 and 2 targets.

Adler also revealed that the funds were focused on real-world decarbonization, which involved engaging with portfolio companies and getting them to adopt decarbonization or net-zero plans.

Adler’s revelations come after three of the five public pensions schemes overseen by the Office of New York City Comptroller committed to achieving net zero by 2040 in 2021. Two years later, two of the companies had given the go-ahead on implementation plans to help meet this objective.

The opinions expressed by Adler don’t seem to be farfetched when you consider that many individual companies, such as Energy and Water Development Corp. (OTCQB: EAWD) have embraced ESG and are making it an integral part of everything they do.

NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Energy and Water Development Corp. (OTCQB: EAWD) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/EAWD

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